Researchers from Agroscope, ENDURE’s Swiss partner, will this year be investigating whether it is feasible to control Japanese beetles in the field with a fungi that has already proved effective against May and June beetles.
It follows the first detection of the Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica ) in Switzerland in June of last year in the canton of Ticino, on the Italian border. Agroscope reports: “In order to prevent rapid establishment and spreading of this quarantine pest, Agroscope experts Giselher Grabenweger and Franco Widmer are testing whether the Japanese beetle can be controlled via fungi that infect insects - so-called entomopathogenic fungi. This environmentally friendly method has been used successfully to combat the voracious grubs of May and June beetles and garden chafers.”
Agroscope maintains a large collection of indigenous fungal strains that are used to control various pests and reports promising early results. Beetles were caught in Italy and transported to its Zurich research station, where they were infected with fungi from its strain collection. Within a few days, all the beetles were dead. “In a little over a week, fungal mycelium was already growing out of the beetle cadavers and starting to form spores,” reports Agroscope. “The Swiss fungal strains had no difficulty in developing on the non-native host insect in this laboratory assay.”
This year researchers will be working with the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture, the canton of Ticino and colleagues from Italy on establishing whether this approach can be put into practice successfully.
As its name suggests, Japanese beetles are native to Japan, where natural predators keep populations under control. However, it has spread extensively across the USA, where a range of biocontrols have been developed. These include the use of a bacterium during the larval stage and the introduction of insect predators and parasitoids.
Japanese beetle larvae feed mainly on the roots of lawns and other grasslands but, Agroscope reports, have also been found in maize and soyabean crops. Adult beetles are even less fussy, feeding on around 300 plant species, including important crops such as maize, grapevine and tomatoes.
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